Many beverages have a distinct taste and aroma that is difficult to duplicate in a more convenient form. One example of such a beverage is coffee. With regular coffee, water is boiled in a coffee pot in advance, and ground roasted coffee beans are put directly in contact with boiling water (the standard amount is 10 g of ground roasted coffee beans per 100 ml of boiling water) and are boiled in boiling water to effect extraction or are similarly extracted by using a percolator or the like. The obtained extract contains caffeine, tannic acid, saccharides, fats, proteins and various aromatic components and it has a fragrance inherent to coffee and a peculiar complicated flavor inclusive of a bitter taste, an astringent taste and an acid taste.
Attempts have been made to place soluble beverages such as soluble coffee in cartridges for use in single-serve beverage machines. However, dry soluble coffee creates dust when transported from one container to another. When soluble coffee is introduced into a single-serve cartridge, so much dusting occurs that often the cartridges cannot be sealed correctly. Further, dry soluble coffee material is generally too free flowing to allow efficient commercial processing and packing into self-serve cartridges. Soluble coffee in self-serve cartridges can also dissolve very quickly in water, which can clog the cartridge or self-serve machine and prevent the production of a uniform beverage product.
Many aromas and flavors associated with coffee are very delicate and complex. With conventional soluble coffee, the delicate coffee flavors and aromas are often degraded or lost during processing and manufacturing methods. Coffee aroma is known to be very unstable. As coffee aroma degrades, it generates unpleasant and non-coffee-like notes that are undesirable. This degradation substantially reduces the perceived quality of the product. For this reason, special attention must be paid to the preparation and storage of flavoring components such as coffee aroma so that desirable aroma components are enhanced or undesirable components are reduced or eliminated.